A Spanish journalist and author has filed a criminal complaint in Spain against Gérard Depardieu, claiming that the film star raped her nearly 30 years ago in Paris.
Ruth Baza, 51, told AFP she filed the complaint with Spanish police on Thursday, saying the alleged rape happened when she interviewed the actor in Paris on 12 October 1995, for the magazine Cinemania.
The complaint was first reported by the Barcelona-based newspaper La Vanguardia.
Baza, who was 23 at the time while Depardieu was 46, spoke of “an intrusion without any consent, at any time”, adding that she felt “paralysed” during the incident.
It allegedly took place on the premises of the former production company Roissy Films.
Baza initially spoke to AFP of “sexual assault” but when asked if she had been raped, she said yes.
“The police described it as such,” she said.
Under Spain’s sexual consent law passed last year, the charge of sexual assault takes in a wide array of crimes, from online abuse and groping to rape, each with different possible punishments.
A rape conviction can carry a maximum sentence of 15 years.
Contacted by AFP, police and prosecutors said they were not able to confirm whether Baza had filed a criminal complaint against the actor.
In 2021, Depardieu was charged with rape and sexual assault in a case brought by the actor Charlotte Arnould, who alleges he raped her in his Left Bank apartment in Paris in 2018 when she was 22. Depardieu, who said the allegations were “baseless”, attempted to have the charges thrown out but a Paris court last year upheld them, saying there was “serious and confirmed evidence that justifies Gérard Depardieu to remain charged”.
Depardieu denied allegations of rape and sexual assault in an open letter published in Le Figaro in October. “Never, ever have I abused a woman,” the actor wrote. “To the media court, to the lynching that has been reserved for me, I have only my word to defend myself.”
A French television report this month that included footage of the 74-year-old making sexist comments has thrown the allegations back in the limelight and reignited a debate about sexism in French cinema.
Baza told AFP that she had “completely” forgotten the alleged assault until she read an investigation published by the news website Mediapart in April, in which 13 women accused the actor of sexual violence.
The article provoked “an inner click” and “flashes” of memory, which she said she corroborated by personal notes she took at the time.
The criminal complaint has little chance of leading to charges against the actor since the events it refers to have already passed the statute of limitations in France.
Baza said she decided to file her complaint despite this in the hope that it would “help other people” to do the same.
